Blue Moon

After starting a new job this week where there was lots of trouble finding parking, lots of (uphill) walking, lots of high-heel wearing, lots of learning new things, and lots of not sleeping well, I was whipped.

Oh, my aching legs.

Oh, my aching head.

Matt was working off-site last evening, so for the first time this week I came home and made dinner. It was late, I’d been held up in traffic for a wreck, and we didn’t sit down to eat until after eight.

Once my belly was full (I was starving) I was finished. Like, finished. I did take my plate to the sink. And I went on the porch and took a quick peek at the moon. I admired it’s bright, blue-hued shininess for all of about fifteen seconds, and then I flopped on the couch.

I had been waiting on that blue moon all week, had monitored its progress intermittently, and had reminded the kids several times to be sure they saw it on Friday. Knowing I would be useless as soon as I hit the couch, I told them again to look at the moon.

Alyssa walked out onto the porch and quickly proclaimed it was not blue, and she didn’t really see anything special about it.

“Dylan, did you go look at the moon?” I asked.

“I will,” he said.

Procrastinator. I didn’t want to have to remember to remind him anymore. I was too tired, but I knew he’d complain if he missed it.

Go look at the moon, I told him.

He said he would go in a little while.

At eleven, I realized I’d been semi-asleep. Time to brush teeth, I told the kids.

Alyssa brushed teeth, and Wyatt brushed teeth, and Dylan started to brush teeth, but stopped as he was going by the door.

“I didn’t look at the moon,” he said.

“It’s bedtime now,” I protested.

My eyes had been yawn-watering for at least the last hour. I was exhausted. And Dylan doesn’t do anything quickly. He wouldn’t just look at the moon, he would study it. I thought my eyes might begin cry-watering if I didn’t go to bed right then.

“I have to go to sleep,” I said.

He paid little attention to me, and walked outside. Wyatt followed, and so did I.

“Look how bright it is,” he said.

I didn’t even look up. “It is bright,” I said.

“I don’t really know how much it looks blue, but it is really bright,” he said, “Wow.”

“It is bright,” I said.

By this time he was on the sidewalk, heading toward the driveway.

“I have to go to sleep,” I protested again. I might have been whining.

“I just want to look at it for a little bit,” he said.

Yep, I called it.

“Look, I can see my shadow on the pavement,” he said.

“It is bright,” I said. I was still on the porch.

He walked the length of our very long driveway and started back, then stopped about mid-way.

“Come out here where you can really see it. I can see everything… in the yard… over there… It’s almost like daylight,” he said.

I opened my mouth to remind him that it was after eleven and I was exhausted and my legs hurt and my head hurt and my eyes were watering and I had to go to bed.

But in the weird silvery glow that had settled across my driveway, I could see he was smiling. So I didn’t say anything, I just walked out there with him.

It was really bright.

After a little bit, he sat down on the pavement.

I started again to remind him of the time, the aching, the watering, and the I-must-go-to-bed. And then he leaned back and stretched out, right there in the middle of the driveway. He put his hands behind his head, and looked around. “This is so cool,” he said, “Look at it.”

So I did something I hadn’t done all evening.

I looked at it.

And then, in my pajamas and barefoot, I stretched out beside him on that warm pavement and really took it all in.

“Is it okay if I lay down on the driveway in my pajamas too?” Wyatt asked.

“It’s okay,” I said.

So he stretched out with us.

“Where is the little dipper?” he asked.

We never found it. But we looked at the moon, and the craters, and the clouds, and the stars. We saw a plane, and some satellites, and maybe Mars, or maybe not. We don’t really know what we saw, but it was fun guessing.

I’m so glad I didn’t go to bed and miss it.

I will always remember lying in the middle of the driveway at almost midnight with my boys watching the clouds meander across the moon. The three of us stayed there for a good half hour, with the cozy pavement beneath us, a cool breeze blowing across us, and the whole universe above us.